


rejoined, unjoined

by PoeticallyIrritating



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3814348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticallyIrritating/pseuds/PoeticallyIrritating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ficlet, set during "rejoined."</p>
            </blockquote>





	rejoined, unjoined

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AroScully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AroScully/gifts).



The moment she steps onto the station, she feels that she could have recognized Dax anywhere; the warm ancient curious part of her knows and the knowledge burns in her chest. When they meet, their hands clasp for an instant too long.

Jadzia’s eyes are so bright. It’s the first thing Lenara notices when her mind catches up from the pounding of her heart and the touch of their hands, and at dinner she can’t stop looking at them. They twinkle with mischief, and she seems as young as she was lifetimes ago. (Lenara feels ancient, like her bones are crumbling.)

_Doesn’t it hurt?_ she wants to ask. _The weight of lifetimes, isn’t it crushing you?_ But the world never seemed to break Torias’ optimism, and the intervening lives don’t seem to have broken Jadzia’s. She winks at Lenara from across the room, and Lenara wants, absurdly, to cry.

When Jadzia kisses her, her lips are not Torias’ lips. There is a little of Torias in the way Jadzia grabs onto her, something familiar in the want, and she remembers hot joyful summer nights on Trill—but Jadzia is softer, slower, too slow to match Lenara’s desperation. She kisses back ungracefully, her teeth bumping Jadzia’s, her lips fumbling against Jadzia’s mouth, messy in her delirium. They are both gasping. Lenara tastes salt and can’t tell which of them is crying—she thinks it might be her. Her bones are aching with the knowledge that she is in love with more than a memory. Jadzia’s fingers curl around the back of her neck and Lenara wants to swallow her whole.

She pictures it, when she’s left Jadzia to sit alone, holding her bones together with the press of her arms across her chest: living with Jadzia. This ship would be the logical place but her mind conjures green, somewhere that flowers grow. She’s thinking of Trill and she digs her teeth into her lip until the painful press of them has shoved away the fantasy. But they could be together somewhere, sometime, could live one dizzying lifetime together. She touches her lower lip, feeling the ghost of Jadzia’s thumbprint, the phantom press of her lips. Her eyes close, remembering. Jadzia is so young and bright, all magic tricks and playful energy, and she can feel herself—falling in love not just with the echo of Torias but with this new and shining woman.

She cannot make herself a sacrifice. The thought comes with certainty, fully-formed. She cannot sacrifice whatever part of her hybrid existence doesn’t have a choice in this. She cries again—but alone, this time, and holding her body together as it shakes.

After she’s left, not daring to look back, she records a message to send to Deep Space 9. “Lieutenant Commander Dax,” she says, and then, “Jadzia.” The name still sounds new in her mouth. “It was a pleasure to see you again. I know that our past carries a heavy weight, but I—” She loses the thread, stares at her hands for a moment, and then she looks up. “I love you,” she says, her voice steady. “I always will.” She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and cuts off the recording device with a _click._


End file.
